Reckoning with Jason Herbert

This week Dr. Kit Heyem visits from across the Pond to talk about their new book, Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender. This was an awesome conversation to talk nonbinary histories through time and why that is relevant today.About our guest:Dr Kit Heyam (they/them or he/him) is a Leeds-based freelance writer, heritage practitioner, trans awareness trainer and academic. You can find them on Blue Sky at: https://bsky.app/profile/krheyam.bsky.social

In 1992 Bill Duke teamed up with Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum to create one of the best film noirs ever made and a masterpiece of Black cinema. Walter Greason and Tim Fielder join in to talk about it, the rise of hip hop, and the early 90s. About our guests:A native of Mississippi, Tim Fielder is an illustrator, cartoonist, animator and OG Afrofuturist. He is the founder of Dieselfunk Studios, an intermedia storytelling company, and is an educator for institutions such as the New York Film Academy and Howard University. Tim has served clients such as Marvel, Tri-Star Pictures, Ubisoft Entertainment, and the Village Voice, and is known for his TEDx Talk on Afrofuturism. He won the prestigious 2018 Glyph Award, and his work has been showcased in the Hammonds House Museum, Exit Art and NYU Gallatin Gallery. He attended Jackson State University, School of Visual Arts, and New York University. He lives in New York City.Walter Greason teaches American and world history, using media ecology, economics, and African diaspora studies. His areas of research include urban planning, Afrofuturism, and multimedia user experience design. He is an author, editor, and contributor to more than twenty books, mostly notably the award-winning books Suburban Erasure and The Black Reparations Project.  His work on the Timothy Thomas Fortune Cultural Center has garnered international acclaim for the innovative use of digital technology, leading to multiple urban revitalization projects in Minnesota, Florida, New Jersey, and Louisiana. He has written for or appeared as the feature guest on media outlets ranging from the Washington Post, USA Today, the Canadian Broadcast Channel, the Philadelphia Daily News, the Huffington Post, National Public Radio, Historians at the Movies, the New York Times Read Along, WURD Philadelphia, and Today with Dr. Kaye (WEEA, Baltimore). He was a Future Faculty Fellow at Temple University where he completed his Ph.D. in History and a Presidential Scholar at Villanova University where he studied History, English, Philosophy, Peace and Justice Studies, and Africana Studies. His most recent project, The Graphic History of Hip Hop, with Afrofuturist illustrator Tim Fielder, has been featured at the United Nations, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum for African American History and Culture, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Schomburg Center in the New York Public Library system, and San Diego Comic-Con in 2024.

In the early 20th century, the New York Times dubbed French philosopher Henri Bergson as "the most dangerous man in the world." Bergson scared a lot of people in how he brought philosophy to the masses but he also won critical acclaim, receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature and France's highest honor, the Grand-Croix de la Legion d'honneur. Surprisingly, no English language biography exists of him. Until now. This week, Dr. Emily Herring joins in to talk about Bergson's rise to fame, his influence on 20th century thought, and the mysteries behind why he died in relative obscurity. About our guest:Dr. Emily Herring received her PhD from the University of Leeds and is now working as a freelance writer and editor. She is the author of the first biography of Henri Bergson in English, Herald of a Restless World. How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People (2024 Basic Books). 

Imagine John Wick. Only instead of losing his puppy, he's lost his entire family because the British let them freeze to death. And imagine now that they're all in Ireland and it's the middle of the Famine. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Black '47. Joining us to talk about this film and the misconceptions around the Irish Potato Famine is Padraic Scanlan, author of the new book Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine. This movie is bonkers and actually has a lot to say on Irish history. And this conversation won't leave you hungry. About our guest:Padraic Scanlan is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, cross-appointed to the Centre for Diaspora & Transnational Studies. He is also a Research Associate at the Center for History and Economics at Harvard University and the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of St. Michael's College.His research focuses on the history of labour, enslaved and free, in Britain and the British empire during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He is currently in the early stages of research on a new project, on the transformation of the line between ‘home’ and ‘work’ in the industrial era. His most recent book, Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine, out now from Robinson Books and Basic Books, reinterprets the history of the Irish Great Famine (1845-1851). In the first half of the nineteenth century, nowhere in Europe – or the world – did the working poor depend as completely on potatoes as in Ireland. To many British observers, potatoes were evidence of a lack of modernity and ‘civilization’ among the Irish. Ireland before the Famine, however, more closely resembled capitalism’s future than its past. Irish labourers were paid some of the lowest wages in the British empire, and relied on the abundance of the potato to survive. He shows how the staggering inequality, pervasive debt, outrageous rent-gouging, precarious employment, and vulnerability to changes in commodity prices that torment so many in the twenty-first century were rehearsed in the Irish countryside before the potatoes failed.

Let’s talk about sex, baby. And food too. And while we’re at it, let’s talk with Dr. Rachel Hope Cleves about how conceptions of food and sex informed one another in the minds of Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries. Plus, we get into the ideas of food tourism, appropriation vs. appreciation, and our favorite food scenes in movies. About our guest:Hungry historian and novelist. Professor at the University of Victoria. Rachel Hope Cleves is the author of four award-winning works of history: Lustful Appetites: An Intimate History of Good Food and Wicked Sex (2024), Unspeakable: A Life Beyond Sexual Morality (2020), Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America (2014), and The Reign of Terror in America: Visions of Violence from Anti-Jacobinism to Antislavery (2009).In 2023, Cleves published her first novel, A Second Chance for Yesterday (2023), co-authored with her brother, the futurist Aram Sinnreich.Her research has been featured in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, salon.com and brainpickings.org. She writes in a treehouse in Victoria, British Columbia.

Thinking about the elders who have guided me in my life and career. 

It's time for a critical reappraisal of President Carter. Joining me this week is Jim Barger, Jr., coauthor of the new book Jimmy Carter: River & Dreams, Rods, Reels, and Peace Deals, Plus the One that Got Away. Jim knew the late President and spoke about Jimmy Carter the angler, the environmentalist, and why he deserves another look. We also talk about Rosalynn, their relationship, and how fishing played into Carter's life in the White House and beyond. This is the conversation about a man sorely needed in the world right now.About the book:For more than half a century, and from Plains to Patagonia, Dr. Carlton Hicks fished with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, their group of loyal guides, and a merry band of best friends and anglers. In 12 stories set in 12 locations around the globe, Jim Barger Jr. and Hicks recount how President Carter and his lifelong friends changed the course of world history, all while casting flies and pursuing the perfect strike.About our guest:Jim Barger, Jr. is a nationally recognized trial lawyer who handles complex government investigations, particularly qui tam whistleblower litigation under the False Claims Act.  Straight out of law school, Jim won a ground-breaking $2 million settlement against a major health insurance company employing a then-novel legal theory under the tort of outrage; two years later, he set the record for the largest qui tam case in Alabama history, winning $24.5 million from Southerncare.  Jim holds the records for the largest home health fraud case in U.S. history, securing $150 million from Amedisys in 2014, and the largest hospice fraud case in U.S. history, securing $75 million from Vitas in 2017.  Jim has served as lead trial counsel in more than 100 qui tam whistleblower cases across the country, has testified as a healthcare fraud expert in federal court, and regularly consults with companies on healthcare compliance issues.  He has been quoted by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NPR, and CNN.

This morning I talk about why Hoosiers has been banned from HATM and why as a Kentuckian I am legally required to hate Indiana.

This week Dr. Surekha Davies joins in to talk about a different way of seeing human history--through monsters. According to her, Monsters are central to how we think about the human condition. So our conversation reveals how people have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way. And to do so, we are talking about one of the very best Pixar films ever made: Monsters, Inc. This episode is so good that it's scary.About our guest:Dr. Surekha Davies is a British author, speaker, and historian of science, art, and ideas. Her first book, Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human, won the Morris D. Forkosch Prize for the best first book in intellectual history from the Journal of the History of Ideas and the Roland H. Bainton Prize in History and Theology. She has written essays and reviews about the histories of biology, anthropology, and monsters in the Times Literary Supplement, Nature, Science, and Aeon.

This week Dr. Will Tosh drops in to talk about the many complexities of Shakespeare's relationships, Shakespeare's role as a working writer, and the competitive landscape of playwrights of the time, along with Will's new book, Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare.About our guest:Dr. Will Tosh is interim Director of Education (Higher Education and Research) at Shakespeare’s Globe, where he is responsible for undergraduate and postgraduate course, events for adult learners, and the Globe’s scholarly research programme. Will researches and writes about the literature and culture of Shakespeare’s England, and his work at the Globe includes dramaturgy, new writing development, and public engagement in person, in the media and online.Will holds degrees from the University of Oxford and Queen Mary University of London, and has worked at Shakespeare’s Globe since 2014. He developed the Research in Action format of public scholarly workshops, and helped to curate the Antiracist Shakespeare webinar series from 2021-24. He is the host of ‘That Is The Question’, the Globe’s award-winning YouTube series. Will is the co-director of the Shakespeare Centre London (based jointly at the Globe and King’s College London), and a mentor for the Early Modern Scholars of Colour network. He has served on the programme committee for the Shakespeare Association of America.Will is the author of Playing Indoors: Staging Early Modern Drama in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (2018), and Male Friendship and Testimonies of Love in Shakespeare’s England (2016), which revealed the intimate social circle of the Elizabethan spy Anthony Bacon. His most recent book is Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare, which was published to wide acclaim in 2024. Will writes and reviews regularly for academic journals as well as the Times Literary Supplement and other news publications.